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How culture can influence personal development
How culture can influence personal development
What is the most significant conflict in the joy luck club
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Your identity is shaped by your desire to be who you want to be. You choose who you surround yourself with. You decide who you want to become, but in the novel the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-mei’s mother already had her identity planned out whether she likes it or not. According to her mother, “you could be anything you wanted to be in America.” Her standards for her daughter were nothing short of the American dream. She wanted her daughter to be a prodigy, to excel in anything, and at first Jing-mei was just as excited as her mother was. She wasn't sure where her daughter's talents rooted, but she was sure that she reeked of potential. Mrs. Woo tried to push her daughter to become an actress, but she soon found out that will get her nowhere. Then …show more content…
Woo cleans the house herself and no longer has a housekeeper. With the money she saved, she hired Mr. Chong, an ancient piano teacher, who can barely hear and whose eyes are too dulled to tell when Jing-mei messes up. He is so genuine that Jing-mei feels guilty and picks up the basic skills, but she is so bent on not pleasing her mother that she continues to purposefully lack in her efforts. She hates the piano. She hates the fact that her mother is shaping her identity. She hates that her mother forces it upon her. She hates that it's everything she isn’t: disciplined, elegant, and most of all controlled. Jing-mei wants to be who she wants to be, and with the piano around, she only continues to be who her mother wants her to be, but she can not tell her mother this. She is supposed to play a piece called “Pleading Child” which is a “simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was”. Even though she had not practiced and didn't know the piece, she played anyway. Halfway through, she began to realize how awful she was. The silence that followed her performance and her parent’s disappointed looks unfolded the undeniable truth, Jing-mei was not a piano
Since "You could be anything you wanted to be in America" (Tan 348) Jing-Meis' mother thought that meant that you had to be a prodigy. While that makes "Everything [sound] too simple and too easily achieved; [Jing-Mei] does not paint a picture of her mother as ignorant or silly" (Brent). In fact, in the beginning, Jing-Mei and her mother are both trying to "Pick the right kind of prodigy" (Tan 349). "In the beginning, [she] was just as excited as [her] mother,"(Tan 349) she wanted to be a prodigy, she wanted to "become perfect [she wanted her] mother and father to adore [her]"(Tan 349). As she strived to achieve perfection she and her mother would try many different things to try and find the "right kind of prodigy" (Tan 349).
Jing-mei 's mother wants Jing-mei to be a prodigy and get popular. Thus, the mother rents a piano for Jing-mei to help her achieve this. Many years later, Jing-mei finds the piano in a broken state, so she decides to have it repaired. She starts playing the song she used to play, “Pleading Child.” But to the right of “Pleading Child,” she finds a second song named “Perfectly Contented.” She starts to play both songs, “And after I [Jing-mei] had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (6) Jing-mei’s mother tells Jing-mei that there are two kinds of people: the respectful kind and the disrespectful kind. At that time, Jing-mei also finds out that there are two kinds of people inside her. She could choose to be the kind where the person is a prodigy and respectful, or be the kind that is ugly in the eyes of people. When she plays “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented,” Jing-mei realizes that her identity had changed completely because of her laziness and beliefs. Jing-mei learns that there are two kinds of people in the world, and she should choose the right
Jing-Mei was forced to take piano lessons; this only further upset her as she felt that she was a constant disappointment. Her mother was mad at her on a regular basis because Jing-Mei stood up for herself and explained to her that she didn’t want to be a child prodigy.
In this story “Two kinds” by Amy Tan it shows the great expectations of a mother, who wishes for her child to be famous and a genius. The mother coming from a society that is very hard working and obedient trying to instill the upbringing she had I her life. The child Jing-mei is a typical example of a child rebelling against their mothers wishes no matter how hard the parental figure tries, the child wishes to perform things in their own way and use their own freewill and to do things in there own timely fashion.
The story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about a mother and daughter who have strong conflicting ideas about what it means to have a sense of self. This may be partly due to the mother growing up in China, which is a very different culture than the American culture where endless opportunities are available to anyone who wants to pursue them. Jing-mei's mother wants her daughter to be the best, a prodigy of sorts, and to have the kind of life, full of hopes and dreams that she did not have. In the beginning of the story Jing-mei liked the idea of becoming a prodigy however, the prodigy in her became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good." It warned. "And then you'll always be nothing" (500). After disappointing her mother several times Jing-mei started to detest the idea of becoming a prodigy. The idea Jing-mei's mother had for her to become a prodigy was too much pressure for a small child and was something that Jing-mei was clearly not ready to be. As a result the pressure that her mother laid upon her only made Jing-mei rebel against her mother and she resisted in giving her best. Jing-mei did this because she only wanted her mother's love and acceptance for who she was not only what she could become. Furthermore, Jing-mei's point of view of being the kind of person that one can be proud of was very different from her mother's point of view.
Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there is no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there is no one else. They have been the ones who love us for who we are and forgive us when no one else wouldn’t. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” the character Jing-mei experiences being raised by a mother who has overwhelming expectations for her daughter, which causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be.
As well as how they attempt to pass on their love, hope and wisdom from tragic experiences to their daughters. In general, the emotional relationship between these four mother-daughter pairs is revealed by several interrelated stories. One of the mothers, Suyuan, was forced to abandon her twin babies during the war in her early lives, so she consistently pushed Jing-mei to succeed in piano. But the more expectations and hopes from Suyuan towards Jing-mei, the more doubts for Jing-mei to ignore her own talents and abilities.
"My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America" (491). This ideology inspired Jing-mei’s mother to work hard to create a better life for herself and her family in a new country. The search of the American dream exerts a powerful influence on new arrivals in the United States. However, realizing that they may not achieve the dream of material success and social acceptance, parents tend to transfer that burden to their children. It is a burden where dreams usually fall short of expectations.
For instance, when Jing-mei and her mother first moved to America, Jing-mei’s mother wanted her to become a prodigy. “We didn’t immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple.” (1). “No! I won’t! I screamed. She snapped off the TV, yanked me by the arm and pulled me off the floor.” (5). Jing-mei is realizing she is not another Shirley Temple. She does not want to do what her mother is making her do. Her mother wants her to be a genius. Jing-mei also realizes that she is not going to be a prodigy anytime soon. In the second quote she is telling her mother that she does not want to play the piano because it is not something that she really enjoys to do. She does not want to do what her mother is forcing her to do. She wants to do what she chooses to do and nobody else! To conclude, Jing-mei finally knows that she will not be the kind of person her mother wants her to be. She will just be herself. Not a prodigy, not a genius. Just
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.
Social institutions, like educational and religious groups, enhance rule obedience and contribute to the formation of identity and sense of belonging to certain groups. People possess a set of beliefs that condition their everyday behavior, like one can think that education is the most important four our future, while other people might believe that staying at home and raising their children is their reality. However, our beliefs are influenced by the groups that we interact. For instance, if we join a feminist movement, we might start reflecting a positive attitude towards gender equality. This illustrates how our social interaction can influence or beliefs related to race, and gender. Similarly, religious institutions and
Imagine a place of complete control of every action during any given day. This unattainable goal goes under the rug; however, this elusive place is attainable only in one 's mind. The dictating factor of all human actions lies within the emotion which derives from the inner depths of the sea. The sea monster which swims through the human body, leeching on to our brains and controlling them. Through the sea monster antagonizing fear into human`s consciousness, this brief attack dictates everyday actions. Fear, expressed from human responses to stressful stimulus activates the flight or fight response inside our brain. This triggers without our conscious awareness as this occurs as an automatic response. A human response in which requires no
Who am I? Wrestling with identity— our history, our culture, our language— is central to being human, and there’s no better way to come to grips with questions of identity than through the crossing of borders. The transcendence of borders reveals the fluid nature of identity, it challenges absurd notions of rigid nationalities, and highlights our common humanity. It is no coincidence, then, that my experience as an immigrant has shaped my academic journey and pushed me to pursue graduate studies.
Knowing what makes up your identity, both physically and emotionally, as well as how much control you have over it, is important to finding your true meaning of life. By distinguishing who you are and what you want to become, you are able to figure out what you can change in order to become happier with who you are. Since the environment you are born in and the one’s you decide to choose weigh so heavily on your entire identity, it is important to find one at which you feel most at home and not a part of the shadows.
The philosophical problem of personal identity pertains to questions that arise about ourselves by virtue of our being persons. There is no single question that will sum up the problem, but rather a multitude of questions that are loosely connected to each other. Within this essay, the four most prominent problems will be explained and addressed. One of the most familiar is the question of “Who am I?” This regards to what makes one a unique individual. Another familiar question is, “What is it to be a person?” This concerns the necessary criteria for something to count as a person as opposed to a non-person. There is also the problem of persistence, relating to personal identity over time. An example of this would be to glance upon an old photograph of a childhood class, point and say, “That's me.” The questions arises of, “What makes you that one instead of one of the others?” The last problem to be explained is the one of evidence. How do we find out who is who? There are two separate sources of evidence used often in philosophy: first-person memory, pertaining to one remembering an action or event and therefore being the person who did such, and physical continuity, where if the one who performed the action or witnessed the event looks like you, then it is you.